This invention relates to a method of producing polymeric foams. More particularly, this invention relates to a process for producing polymeric foams by directly reacting a foamed mixture of monomers in the presence of electron beam radiation.
Polymeric foams have been produced by a variety of methods, including catalytic methods, heating, cross-linking, thermal decomposition of blowing agents in thermoplastic materials and the like. However, polymeric foams have not been made directly from acrylate-type monomers which have been foamed as monomers.
It has been surprisingly been found that a certain group of fluorochemical surfactants can produce stable foams of acrylic monomers for a time sufficient to enable the foams to be irradiated and react the monomers into a polymeric acrylic foam.